"Switch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is such connections that bind us to a certain line of activity instead of any other, when once the habit is formed. It is just as logical to expect a car which is started on its own track to suddenly go off on to another track where there is no switch, as to expect a nerve current traveling along its habitual conduction unit to run off on some other line of nervous discharge. Habit once formed binds that particular line of thought to action, either good or bad. Of course habits may be broken, ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... switch on the intercom to direct contact with the waiting ship and gave Sticoon the oft-repeated final briefing, concluding, "Do not go beyond the necessary limitations of fuel consumption that are provided for in the Solar Guard space code. If you return here with less than a quarter supply ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... heart palpitated, my voice faltered, and my sight failed. How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which ought to surround sovereigns! Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted me; and I believe this extreme simplicity was the first and only real mistake of all those with ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... looking after the first two gangs, and are allowed to carry whips to hold over them in terror, even if not often used. The gang of children is confided to the charge of an old woman, who carries a long switch; and with her it is no mere emblem of authority, for she employs it pretty frequently on the backs of the urchins. You have seen Mammy Quasheba, and I dare say she appears to you to be a very amiable old dame, for she ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... plans of each room, besides a full list of the furniture and ornaments it contained. Later, I went up into the roof and disconnected the water supply, afterwards emptying the cistern and all the pipes. And before I went to bed I turned off the electric light at the main switch. All these precautions, as I need hardly tell you, were absolutely essential. It might appear difficult to explain the moving of a large chest of drawers by the sound of water-pipes or the fusing of an electric wire; but the critics of psychical ...
— The Psychical Researcher's Tale - The Sceptical Poltergeist - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • J. D. Beresford
... of six years old sat astride on the end of one of the benches, round which he had thrown a bridle of plaited rushes, and, with a switch in his other hand, was springing himself up and down, calling out, "Come, Eleanor, come, Lucy; come and ride on a pillion behind me to Worcester, to see King ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... eighty black years with them!" I answered, blushing, and hastened to switch the conversation to the lockout and strike ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... him well in hand down the slope—don't let him out at all at all, till you come to the turn: when you're fairly round the corner, just shake your reins the laste in life, and when you're halfway up the rise, when the lad begins to snort a bit, let him just see the end of the switch—just raise it till it catches his eye; and av' he don't show that he's disposed for running, I'm mistaken. We'll step across to the bushes, my lord, and see ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... at moving train windows; (4) shooting at the actors in the Olympic Theatre with sling shots; (5) breaking signal lights on the railroad; (6) stealing linseed oil barrels from the railroad to make a fire; (7) taking waste from an axle box and burning it upon the railroad tracks; (8) turning a switch and running a street car off the track; (9) staying away from home to sleep in barns; (10) setting fire to a barn in order to see the fire engines come up the street; (11) knocking down signs; (12) cutting ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... connected to the Trans-Asia-Europe fiber-optic cable through Iran; additional international service is available by microwave radio relay and landline connections to the other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and through the Moscow international switch and by satellite to the rest of the world; satellite earth ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... against the setting of the projector. They matched. Still puzzled, he examined the other settings without discovering any apparent cause for her fright-hysteria. The tranquil strip ended and the machine shut itself off. The usher moved a switch that released the pressure of the electrodes against the girl's head and retracted them into the headset. Her eyes opened as he removed the apparatus ...
— The Premiere • Richard Sabia
... wall switch Locke had led wires carrying the house current. Already, also, he had let Eva in on his secret plan, and she was all eagerness as he ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... O Tapio's daughter! Drive the game in this direction, Out into the open heathland. If it runs with heavy footsteps, Or is lazy in its running, Take a switch from out the bushes, Or a birch-twig from the valley, 180 Switch the game upon the haunches, And upon the flanks, O whip it, Drive it swiftly on before you, Make it hasten quickly onward, To the man who here awaits it, In the pathway ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... middle western states, and, at one place in Indiana, it developed such velocity as to start in motion an empty box car standing on a railway siding. It was carried on to the main track, the derailing switch not being turned, and ran for two miles before the wind, the grade being slightly up-hill. It finally collided with a passenger train and several persons were killed. The railroad company produced the weather records to show that a storm of such violence ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... canon came the sound of a puffing locomotive that presently steamed by them with its three dingy little coaches, and, after a stop for water and the throwing of a switch, pushed back to connect with the ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... inclose an oblong circle some 18 by 22 feet at the base, converging to a point at least 30 feet high, covered with buffalo-hides dressed without hair except a part of the tail switch, which floats outside like, and mingled with human scalps. The different skins are neatly fitted and sewed together with sinew, and all painted in seven alternate horizontal stripes of brown and yellow, decorated with various life-like war scenes. Over the small entrance ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... He whistled at the sound-switch next to his pillow and the repaired communicator came to life. The duty nurse appeared in ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... click of the front-door handle, the last mounting squeal from Roger, which was cut short by a gruff whine from Poppy, and, loudest of all, the silence that fell after the banging of the door. They heard the turn of the electric switch. Marion must be standing out there in the dark. But Ellen doubted that even if he had been with her in soul as in body, and had spoken to her the words she wished, she could have answered him as she ought, for a part ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... answer. He just faced about to stare once more. And then the miracle came to pass. Around a far bend in Dexter Allison's single spur track there came careening an ashmatic switch engine with a half-dozen empty flats in tow. With a brave puffing and blowing of leaky cylinder heads, it rattled across an open space between piles of timber in the mill-yard and disappeared with a shrill toot of warning for unseen workmen upon the tracks ahead. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... went along, I turned the case over in my mind, and the case grew stronger and stronger all the time. Before I reached Jack's door I had, satisfied myself that his mother would be shocked at the news and would at once cut a big switch to give Jack ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... cried the officer. "Whoa!" and he arose in the seat to get a good view of the spot toward which Frank pointed. "I reckon he's seen me, for he's making back his trail licketty-switch." ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... a train like this one. This valkyric journey on the back of the vermilion engine, with the shouting of the wind, the deep, mighty panting of the steed, the gray blur at the track-side, the flowing quicksilver ribbon of the other rails, the sudden clash as a switch intersects, all the din and fury of this ride, was of a splendor that caused one to look abroad at the quiet, green landscape and believe that it was of a phlegm quiet beyond patience. It should have been dark, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... some way of letting her know the time at night, so she'd get some sleep; for she simply can't go to sleep till she knows. She can't bear a light in the room, and it wakes her all up to turn an electric switch, or anything ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... to the entire command; for, after having had two fist fights with a couple of weak and inoffensive men, he commenced boasting that he could easily flog all the Frenchmen present; and, as to the Americans, he said that "he could cut a stick and switch them." Such actions and manners, at last, attracted Kit Carson's notice and caused him to be greatly annoyed. He thought the matter over and concluded that if Captain Shunan was allowed to gather many more such detestable laurels, he would soon become even more bold and troublesome. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... a little and now the wind began to shake the house, rattle the windows and scream as it tore its way over the plains. The sky flared white and the world lighted up suddenly, as though the sun had been turned on from an electric switch. At the same instant she saw a bolt of lightning strike a young tree by the roadside, heard the sharp click as it hit and then watched the flash dance about, now on the road, now along the barbed wire fencing. Then the world went black again. And a rumble quickly grew ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... left, meanwhile, had by a superhuman effort penetrated the great Drocourt-Queant switch of the Hindenburg line, and firmly maintained their grip on the ground to the east of it, and all counter attacks made by the enemy, to dislodge them, proved unavailing. The troops to the south had also effected good progress, and the ill-fated town of Bapaume had again changed hands ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... and get your money!" advised Sandy. "Just go straight down the gangway until you come to a face of rock and then switch off to the left, and you'll find yourself in a chamber used at present by robbers and hold-up ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... it was a few fathoms astern. Now it was abreast. Now it had passed. Stealthily four heads slipped above the gunwale of the scout boat. The spy craft was already lost in darkness. The pilot grasped his wheel. He turned a switch and the boat began to vibrate silently. Then it moved forward, gathering momentum with every second. Under the covered deck the other agent flashed a ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... Parliament Buildings in Ottawa were burning, the main switch which controlled the lighting was turned off by mistake and the whole place was plunged into darkness, and this added greatly to the horror and danger. The switch was down a long passage through which the smoke was rolling, and it seemed ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... wilfully cut out the tongue, put out the eye, castrate, or cruelly scald, burn, or deprive any slave of any limb or member, or shall inflict any other cruel punishment, other than by whipping or beating with a horse-whip, cow-skin, switch or small stick or by putting irons on, or confining or imprisoning such slave, every such person shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of one ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... kindliness, as well as the value of all his early training in the arts of the politician. Always ready to listen, and to give men free chance to relieve their minds in talk, he never directly antagonized their opinions, but, deftly embodying an argument in an apt joke or story, would manage to switch them off from their track to his own without their exactly perceiving the process. His innate courtesy often made him seem uncertain of his ground, but he probably had his own way quite as frequently as Andrew Jackson, and without ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... this conclusion just as he turned the switch of the electric light inside his door, and in the first flash of the carbon film he saw her sitting beside the window in such a chair as she had taken and in the very pose which she had kept in the parlor. Her half-averted face was lit as from laughing, and she had her hand lifted ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... that night, you remember we agreed I was to do the talking. But no, you pulled a switch and captured Martin Laughton's attention. 'I came as soon as I could, Martin,' you said. And suddenly I played a very minor role. 'This is my new assistant, Dr. Tompkins,' you said. And then what happened? ...
— The Ultroom Error • Gerald Allan Sohl
... hinder me so in my work; if you want to turn double somersets, go and do it in your dear mamma's parlor; go and plague Mr. Sherwood, or Patrick, or, still better, torment Jane, and leave me to plant my cabbages." Do you know how he answers? By cracking me over the shoulders with his switch, and crying out, "Look out, old potato top, or I'll tumble you into the pond." I might as well ask the river to run up hill. And look here, ma'am, see this picture (shows picture) he drew of me, watering the garden in a thunder storm, as if I ever did such a thing! ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... a standard war game. The CIA man was well acquainted with it. He watched the general flip a switch, then sit back and fold his arms over his chest. A row of lights on the desk console began blinking on and off, one, two, three ... down to the end of the row, then back to the beginning again, on and off, on ...
— The Next Logical Step • Benjamin William Bova
... She was an excellent target for teasing because she always took things so seriously. "I shall never have a switch in my school, Mr. Harrison. Of course, I shall have to have a pointer, but I shall use it ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... she asked; "a Wordsworth booklet next Christmas, and another calendar the Christmas after, with the same problem of having to write suitable letters of thankfulness. No, the best thing to do is to drop all further allusion to the calendar and switch off on ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... the line-men and labourers-they stayed. But the switch-boards must be operated-the telephone was vital.... Only half a dozen trained operators were available. Volunteers were called for; a hundred responded, sailors, soldiers, workers. The six girls scurried backward and forward, instructing, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... the interest of the human spectacle that there is a sea somewhere about at Rockaway Beach, and it is this that the people have come for. I might well forget that modest sea, it is so built out of sight by the restaurants and bath-houses and switch-backs and shops that border it, and by the hotels and saloons and shows flaring along the road that divides the village, and the planked streets that intersect this. But if you walk southward on any of the streets, you presently find the planks foundering in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... course of time. There was no chance that the antique bronze clock on the mantel might go wrong, for it was electrically controlled from the office. You did not open the window and let in the dust, for the room was automatically ventilated, and you turned a switch marked "hot" and "cold." The office would furnish you a guide who would show you the establishment; and you might see your bread being kneaded by electricity, upon an opal glass table, and your eggs being tested by electric ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... of hills lay east and west, but to cross the range the road wound about in the most complicated and curious fashion. At the summit of the range, where the line crossed, there was a water tank, and a cross-over switch, and a house for the line-man. This place was eight miles from the station, on the east side, as the crow flies; by rail it was seventeen miles, a steady up grade all the way. All the west-bound trains had to have help in getting over this seventeen-mile grade, and ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... passed, and my mind was just getting easy again when it stopped. A switch was snapped within, and the limousine was brightly lit up. Inside I saw a ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... devoted exclusively to carrying freight,[249] to restore a siding used principally by a particular plant but available generally as a public track, and to continue, even though not profitable by itself, a sidetrack[250] as well as the upkeep of a switch-track leading from its main line to industrial plants.[251] However, a statute requiring a railroad without indemnification to install switches on the application of owners of grain elevators erected ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... in other great modern ships, these doors were held in place above the openings by friction clutches. On the bridge was a switch which connected with an electric magnet at the side of the bulkhead opening. The turning of this switch caused the magnet to draw down a heavy weight, which instantly released the friction clutch, and allowed the ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... the apparatus (Fig. 4) to be described is the cut-off, which is used when there are several lamps in series. It is brought into play by the switch, C D, which can be placed at E or D. When it is at E, the negative terminal, A, is in communication with the positive terminal, B, through the resistance, R, which equals the resistance of the lamp, which is, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... covered with a tin plate on which were heaped live coals. More coals were poked from between the logs on to a flat place, were spread out thin, and were crowned by the frying pan and its glowing freight. Bennington held over the fire a switch of ham in each hand, taking care, according to directions, not to approach the actual blaze. Mary borrowed his hunting knife and disappeared into the thicket. In a moment she returned with a kettle-lifter, improvised ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... of a rail-end 49 in. in length, which serves as a movable tongue, placed in front of a complete crossing, the rails of which have a radius of 4, 6, or 8 meters; a push with the foot suffices to alter the switch. There are four different models of crossings ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... of all his dukes and peers, Reverenced for much wit at's years, Nor must you think it much; For he with little switch doth play, And make fine dirty pies of clay, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... still in the air, dominating the minds of the midshipmen when a turn of the master switch shut ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... never see that," Nick sighed. "Only, if you could just see your way to forgiving me, I should be mighty thankful. I promise to switch off till you send for me. I'm in the next car to yours, if you should need to—if there's anything I could do, between ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... for the animals are wonderfully accurate in flight and most expert dodgers. Even while in a cave, where hundreds of bats were in the air, they seldom flew against us, although we might often be brushed by their wings; and it was a most difficult thing to hit them with a bamboo switch. Their ability in dodging is without doubt a necessary development of their feeding habits for, with the exception of a few species, bats live exclusively upon insects and catch ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... this. At last, throwing away the switch he held in his hand, he said, as if speaking to himself, "I don't know whether I have the power." . . . "You don't know! And you wanted me just now to give up my arms! That's good, too," cried Brown; "Suppose they say one thing to ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... against offence to the parents, and knew that to set my foot on the children's larrikinism would require measures that would gain their mother's ill-will at once. But when M'Swat left home for three weeks Jim got so bold that I resolved to take decisive steps towards subjugating him. I procured a switch—a very small one, as his mother had a great objection to corporal punishment—and when, as usual, he commenced to cheek me during lessons, I hit him on the coat-sleeve. The blow would not have brought tears from the eyes of a toddler, but this great calf emitted a wild yope, and opening ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... other laughed. "Not so simple as all that, boy. We've started something which can't just be turned off as easily as you snap down a switch." He took a step or two ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... to know about her family, Mr. Bullfinch's family, and every college town they had lived in while Mr. Bullfinch was teaching. He had, it seemed, been a Latin teacher until the demand for Latin had grown so small that he had thought best to switch to ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... play: all modes of doctoring dice had been made familiar to her by the experience of camps. She watched; and, by the time she had lost her final coin, she was satisfied that she had been plundered. In her first anger she would have been glad to switch the whole dozen across the eyes; but, as twelve to one were too great odds, she determined on limiting her vengeance to the immediate culprit. Him she followed into the street; and coming near enough to distinguish his profile reflected on a wall, she continued ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... inside of it an electric switchboard; there is only one switch so you cannot possibly go wrong. When that switch is pushed down it connects with wires attached to a mine field. You are to go out to that shelter and wait until the German infantry reaches a spot one hundred feet in front of you; then you are to throw the switch. The mines will all explode ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... thong sharply felt by the victims of his caprice, or malice. The "cowhide" was constantly carried by himself, and his overseer. He had a son, too, who could wield it wickedly as either. None of the three ever went abroad without that pliant, painted, switch—a very emblem of devilish cruelty—in their hands; never returned home, without having used it in the castigation of some unfortunate "darkey," whose evil star had caused him to stray across their track, while riding the ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... ray-fish with a pair of enormous fins stretching out from either side of the body, and a long switch tail, armed with a barbed bone, which forms a dangerous ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... hoarse shriek came from her whistle, and the wheels began to revolve. Ralph was at the throttle, while Bill Whiting was up ahead to throw the switch. ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... the light was put out, but the Prefect of Police kept his hand on the electric switch. Ten times, twenty times, he unexpectedly turned on the light. There was nothing on the table. What had aroused his attention was the creaking of a piece of furniture or a movement made by one of the ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... went at full speed alongside the big gray wall that, above him, rose sheer a thousand feet and, straight ahead, broke wildly and crumbled into historic Cumberland Gap. From a little knoll he saw the railway station in the shadow of the wall, and, on one prong of a switch, his train panting lazily; and, with a laugh, he pulled his horse down to a walk and then to a dead stop—his face grave again and uplifted. Where his eyes rested and plain in the moonlight was a rocky path winding upward—the old Wilderness ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... Anglo-Saxon a subject conceiving himself wronged by the king was permitted, on proving his injury, to beat a brazen image of the royal offender with a switch that was afterward applied to his own naked back. The latter rite was performed by the public hangman, and it assured moderation in the plaintiff's choice of ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... poor old wither'd witch, Or dread the scourge's echoing blow!" Then loud he sung and wav'd his switch, "Hark forward, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... of transoms and a sound of voices proclaimed that the apartments were tenanted. Benton entered his own unlighted room, and then with his hand at the electric switch halted in embarrassment. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... met by the chief Blackfish, who said sternly to Kenton in English, "You have been stealing horses." "Yes, sir." "Did Captain Boone tell you to steal our horses?" "No, sir, I did it on my own accord." Blackfish then lashed him over the naked back with a hickory switch till the blood ran, and with blows and taunts from all sides Kenton was marched forward ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... ought to ask for it, or send round a subscription-list, instead of juggling about the country, with an Australian larrikin; a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a brace of chumars in gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with hogged manes, and a switch- tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because she has a kink in her flag. Racing leads to the shroff quicker than anything else. But if you have no conscience and no sentiments, and good hands, and some knowledge of pace, and ten years' experience of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... before him, wherein a man was sued for beating his wife. When the matter was agitated, the Doctor gave his opinion, 'That although a man had no right to beat his wife unmercifully, yet that, with such a little cane or switch as he then held in his hand, a husband was at liberty, and was invested with a power, to give his wife moderate correction'; which opinion determined the lady against having the Doctor. He died an old man and a bachelor" (Deane Swift). See also Lascelles, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... wanderers conducted their perambulations much more circumspectly, and Ned lost no time in providing his companion and himself with a stout pliant switch, which he had heard or read somewhere is a most effective ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... won the preference. He, as well as his chum and the professor, had already donned their aeronautic uniforms, and he now strapped himself into the pilot's seat. The steering apparatus, the levers that controlled the planes, and the motor switch were all under his hand. While in flight the Snowbird need be under the control of but one person at ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... still that the shuffle-shuffle of a footstep can be heard in the distance, the tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to and fro, the swish of an alder switch cropping the heads of the roadside weeds. All at once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it a child's, a woman's, or a man's? ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... men went away after their midday meal, and about sundown came in single file along the banked-in path each carrying a firestick in one hand, a green switch in the other. When they reached the mudgee in the middle of the big ring and corroboreed for a little round it, the old women answered with a Boorah song, and all moved to the edge of the ring. At this stage men often tried to steal each other's ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... his knife into his girdle and held the switch firmly by its larger end. He looked gravely into the face of each lad while he was speaking. When they ceased he had something ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... a certain magician summoned a black-robed, steeple-hatted demon from the nether world, who, after commanding a minion to give a pickle-back to sundry grotesque personages, did castigate their ulterior portions severely with a large switch, was a striking amelioration and betterment upon the preceding scenes, and evinced that TERENCE possessed no deficiency of up-to-date facetiousness and genuine humour; though I could not but reflect—"O, si sic omnia!" and lament that he should have hidden ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... previous visit to the more picturesque Constantinople. In a crowded street we encountered a flock of turkeys driven by a native. The turkeys appeared to understand the driver's commands and were more easily guided by a touch of his long switch than would be a flock of sheep passing through a ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... opportunity, and at once lent Holmes a dozen telephones. Without asking permission, Holmes went into six banks and nailed up a telephone in each. Five bankers made no protest, but the sixth indignantly ordered "that playtoy" to be taken out. The other five telephones could be connected by a switch in Holmes's office, and thus was born the first tiny and crude Telephone Exchange. Here it ran for several weeks as a telephone system by day and a burglar-alarm by night. No money was paid by the bankers. The service ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... had been done with soft pencil; they bore repeated erasures and corrections. That of the whip showed a cylindrical handle, indicated as twelve inches in length and one in diameter, fitted with a thumb-switch. ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... statement of the conductor is a conclusion of fact. But if the other side wants to find out how he tried to stop the car, let him ask what was done. "Did he turn on the brake handle? Did he switch on the emergency?" A man does not have to be an expert to say that the car was going fast; he may be examined as to what he considers to be fast. Nor does he have to be an expert to say that eggs are rotten, that butter is rancid, that there has been a war in Europe, ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... was musing on this description, and comparing it with the object before me, the Knight told me, that this very old woman had the reputation of a witch all over the country, that her lips were observed to be always in motion, and that there was not a switch about her house which her neighbours did not believe had carried her several hundreds of miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws that lay in the figure of a cross before ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... was growing greyer, "Unc' Bernique, I'm f'm the hills, an' not like them," the blood began suddenly to come back to his lips; he raised in his stirrups and slashed at the branches of a black-jack tree with his riding switch, as though he cut a vow across the air, high up. "But what I can, I will!" he cried, and clenched his hands proudly. "Fer her an'—an' fer him!" he choked. Whatever he meant to do, his young passion for Salome Madeira and his young affection for Steering, his hero, leaped out on his face ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... upon the top of a load of hay holding the reins, and urging forward the horse, in the ascent of a very steep hill. First, he tried coaxing, and as that proved of little avail, he next tried the effect of a few vigorous strokes with a long switch which he carried in his hand. When the poor old horse had dragged the heavy load about half way up the hill, he seemed incapable of further exertion, and horse, cart, Terry and all began a rapid backward descent down ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... infernal scoundrel—" piped the Doctor. "I just been reading that decision. The men showed in their lawsuit that the month before the law took effect the company, knowing the law had been passed, went out and sold their switch and sold the slag dump, to a fake railroad company that bought a switch engine and two or three cars, and incorporated as a railroad, and then—the same people owning the smelter and the railroad, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Kohlhaas. "Who gave Squire Tronka and his people permission to use for work in the fields the black horses that I left behind with him?" He added, "Do you call that humane?" and trying to rouse the exhausted nags with a switch, he showed him that they did not move. The castellan, after he had watched him for a while with an expression of defiance, broke out, "Look at the ruffian! Ought not the churl to thank God that the jades are still alive?" He asked who would have been expected to take care of them when the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... 'Go, children of my care! To practice now from theory repair. 580 All my commands are easy, short, and full: My sons! be proud, be selfish, and be dull. Guard my prerogative, assert my throne: This nod confirms each privilege your own. The cap and switch be sacred to his grace; With staff and pumps the marquis lead the race; From stage to stage the licensed earl may run, Pair'd with his fellow-charioteer the sun; The learned baron butterflies design, Or draw to silk Arachne's ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... There stood Josiah Allen before the glass and of all the sights I ever see his dress went ahead. He had got on a red woolen underskirt and his dressin' gown over it kinder floated back from it, and he had took out of my trunk a switch of hair that Tirzah Ann had put in, thinkin' mebby I would want to dress my head different in foreign countries; I hadn't wore it at all, and it wuz clear in the bottom of my trunk, but he had got at it somehow and had fastened it onto his head, and it hung down his back and ended with a big ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... begged him off; but Mr Benson had listened more to her arguments than now to her pleadings, and only answered, "If it is right, it shall be done!" He went into the garden, and deliberately, almost as if he wished to gain time, chose and cut off a little switch from the laburnum-tree. Then he returned through the kitchen, and gravely taking the awed and wondering little fellow by the hand, he led him silently into the study, and placing him before him, began an admonition on ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... this they rushed to snatch the comb from her, but Jack threw them backwards so very roughly that their husbands sprang at him. With a back switch of his two hands Jack knocked the husbands down senseless. The King flew into a rage, and said, "How dare you do that to the two finest and bravest ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... took the part of Abe Switch, a farmer, who had come from Pumpkinville Center, Tennessee, to make his first visit ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... Craig, "though—yes, they will be moving in another sense. Now, if we are all ready, I'll switch off the electric lights." ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... the boiling point. Inside, it was a burning, suffocating hell. Perhaps it was the heat that aroused Hal Burnett once again. Somehow he managed to stumble to the Tele-screen. With the last vestige of a waning strength, he managed to switch it on and ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara
... and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half-expecting to see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... what you do: you just switch me in somewhere between you and Madame and him and her. That'll give me a line on all of you—and maybe it'll give all of you a ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... the blizzard the foreman had ordered his crew out and upon their hand car driven at a lively rate by the power of the wind they had inspected every switch and car standing on sidings upon their section, to assure themselves that everything was properly safeguarded. While they were slowly "pumping" the hand car homeward, fighting against the force of the raging snow storm, they discovered us lying closely cuddled together, ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... large part of this important department of house equipment has been built into the house. The water system, the sewer connection or its substitute, and the lighting apparatus are already installed, so that the turn of a switch or a faucet, the pull of a chain, sets one or all to work for us. We are now to consider whether we shall buy a vacuum cleaner or a broom and dustpan; a washing machine and electric flatiron or the services ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... whirl roun' an' roun' an' drap down lak you dead. Arter you drap down, you mus' sorter jerk yo' legs once er twice an' den you mus' lay right still. If fly light on yo' nose let 'im stay dar. Don't move; don't wink yo' eye; don't switch yo' tail. Des lay right dar an' 'twont' be long for yo' hear from me. Yit don't yo' move till I ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... head-on collision between the two trains. In some way, nobody knew how, there had been a misunderstanding of orders, and the east-bound train, instead of waiting at the next switch, had come on toward the usual passing place. In the shock of meeting, its engine had reared and ploughed its way over the other and the two monsters lay upon the ground, a mass of twisted scraps of iron. One engineer had stuck to his post, the other had jumped, ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... of household equipment which keep causing unnecessary pain, labor, and irritation: that leaky faucet, that worn-out washing machine, that broken light switch, that asthmatic vacuum sweeper, that torn rug, that decrepit snow shovel, ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... the muscles of the player, is rubbed into the wounds after which the sufferer plunges into the stream and washes off the blood. In order that the blood may flow the longer without clotting it is frequently scraped off with a small switch as it flows. In rheumatism and other local diseases the scratching is confined to the part affected. The instrument used is selected in accordance with the mythologic theory, excepting in the case of the piece of glass, which is merely a ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... instead my arm and shoulder. I have had people try to mesmerise me a dozen times, and never with the least result. But at the first tap—on a quarter no more vital than my hat-brim, and from nothing more virtuous than a switch of palm wielded by a man I could not even see—sleep rushed upon me like an armed man. My sinews fainted, my eyes closed, my brain hummed, with drowsiness. I resisted—at first instinctively, then with a certain flurry of despair, in the end successfully; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then slipped across noiselessly into the shadow by the switch. There he waited. Presently the manager's footsteps could be heard returning. He stopped in his old position, unconscious of the stoker crouching ten feet away from him. Then the big dynamo suddenly fizzled, and in another ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... get the article in question, while the boys stood beside Captain Hazzard, who was about to explode the heavy charges. Everybody was ordered to hold tight to something, and then the commander pushed the switch. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... up to the fence, the switching engine had been thrown into the wrong siding, and had bunted up at full speed against a milk car, sending the latter down the siding to the main track. It took the switch at a sharp pace, was derailed, and blocked the track. The crowd in the court gave a shout of delight. The switching ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... of her sojourn with us she had fifteen different kinds of disease, every one of which advertised itself by the stopping of her milk, When she had none, she never once gave down the milk without grudging it. With three of us to hold her legs and tail lest she step in the pail or switch our ears, she would reach back and eat the vest off my back where I sat milking her. But she does not belong in this story, thank goodness! If she had never belonged to me or mine, I should be a better man to-day; she provoked me so. However, I cannot ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... said he, vulgarly. "Nothin' doin' in the complimentary line. I'm too wise to be bamboozled by a switch of hair and a newly massaged arm. Oh, I guess you'll make good in the calcium, all right, with plenty of powder and paint on and the orchestra playing 'Under the Old Apple Tree.' But don't put on your hat and chase downstairs to fly to the Little Church ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... riding-school loom too large; did the serjeant speak a harsh word unto him, "The Beachcomber" promptly went sick. Malaria was his long suit. By aid of black arts learned during those seven years sojourning with the heathen Chinee he could switch malaria (or a plausible imitation of it) on or off at will and fool the M.O.'s every time. I used to interview them about it, but got scant sympathy. The Healers' Union brooks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... Toms is a case of it." She tickled her horse's ears with her riding switch, and he stamped a hoof on the ground and arched his neck as though he knew he was a case of it and was proud of being a case of it. "I wanted an elegant name for him and I always think two names are so elegant ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson |
